Q:  What do Christians believe about ghosts, hauntings and the paranormal?

A:  It was just a couple weeks ago that this question came to me in a Facebook message.  I wanted to deal with it here because this is the sort of question that I have been asked about by a lot of people from a variety of backgrounds and from across the spectrum of belief and unbelief.  It seems that every year about this time (Halloween), I get a question or two from people on this subject.

I believe what the Bible says about these things, and the things we can deduce from the Bible about the metaphysical world.

SO WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THIS?

1. Don’t communicate with the dead, try to predict the future, read the stars, or anything else that seeks alternative spiritual paths to knowledge.  Repeated commands and warnings in the scriptures abound in the Old Testament with some of the strongest language the Bible has.  See Deuteronomy 18:9-12 for an example. This indicates that there is real spiritual danger by exploring these things.  In particular, Paul points to the fact that the worship of idols (which often involved attempts to read the future, speak with the dead, etc.) is actually the worship of demons (1 Corinthians 10:20-21).  This should give us some indication that rather than communicating with ghosts of dead people, spiritual contact with anyone other than God is likely trafficking with demons, in reality.
2. Jesus Christ is Lord.  This central confession of the Christian faith means that followers of Jesus trust him in the face of all challenges to his authority.  Therefore, Christians do not need to fear that demons will take possession of them or strike them with fear or disease or anything else.  Christians also don’t need to imagine that spirits will take over their homes or their minds or anything else.  “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).  That means that spirits don’t have power over Jesus Christ.  His followers don’t need to run scared.  Jesus also suggested in his teaching that if he is living in a believer, they don’t have reason to fear demon possession (Luke 11:24-26).
3. Demons inhabit people, not places.  This is an important distinguishing mark between the activity of spirits in the Bible and how these things are reflected in our own culture’s stories and legends.  Throughout the Bible, unclean spirits inhabit and manifest themselves in people, not in places.  God’s Spirit is manifested in places through things that can be seen (cloud, flame, wind, etc.), but unclean spirits are seen to be speaking through people and, in one case, animals.  For this reason, I don’t put much stock in stories about spirits that are taking up residence in homes or barns or any other “place”, as their aim is to control people.  Spirits control people and tempt them to disregard God and to embrace sin.  This is the main way unclean spirits can control the world and wage war against God.  Merely scaring people is of no lasting use to the devil or his minions.  
4. The dead are not wandering the earth.  The scriptures make it abundantly clear that when people die, they enter into eternity.  Either they go to a miserable, Christless exitence, or they enter into the presence of God at the end of their lives, depending on their faith.  This is the uniform teaching of the New Testament.  In one case in the Old Testament, a witch calls up the spirit of Samuel to give advice to Saul.  This activity is not to be seen as “ordinary” or neutral.  This wicked activity, as mentioned above, is condemned in the scriptures.  Because the scriptures testify as to the “settled” nature of death, only to be reversed by the return of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead, tales of murdered people walking the lanes where they were killed or appearing on rainy evenings in the attic of an abandoned house are just the fabric of human imagination.
5. The enemies of God are not monsters or ghosts, but spiritual creatures (fallen angels) who have sided with Satan.  Because this is the biblical basis for thinking about who God is truly at war with, we should recognize the power of Satan, sin and death as being the true enemies of God and of the believer.  This is the struggle that the believer is in middle of and has certainty about based on the death and resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).  The struggle between Christ and Satan and death is the central struggle of the universe and no struggle in the spiritual realm is separate from this.  The Christian’s understanding of the spiritual realm is rooted in their understanding of this central and ultimate contest.  A ghost who seeks to merely scare people witless doesn’t fit into this basic concept in the Bible.  Some basic categories of what you need to be “afraid of” entering into your life are found in 1 John 2:16–For everything in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–comes not from the Father but from the world.

That last point may be the key to understanding all of it.  People sense their need for a connection with something that is not fully known and that is spiritual in nature.  That would explain the widespread popularity of shows about monsters or the recent fame of zombies. There may be plenty of fun to be had in such stories, but they do not resonate with what the scriptures testify is real about the spiritual realm.

I welcome your thoughts in the “comment” section below!